Postmark Bayou Chene Page 10

  Lauf was a good baby and a happy boy. Maybe because he got so much attention. Anyway, whatever the reason, when he got older, he liked helping around the store like Josie did in the post office. He just never did get the hang of fishing and swamping like most of ’em do around here. Storekeeping seemed to suit him better than that hard dirty work.

  He would have made good with the store, and Adam could have kept on fishing and swamping if things had stayed the same. Beatrice and Josie shared the care of their young’uns, making it easier on both of them. Those were happy years.

  I remember the night they found the last of the bodies. Beatrice. I finally went to bed. I was tossing around trying to rest somehow, but my mind was just too tortured. Then all of a sudden I heard crackling, just like willow sounds when it burns. My scalp felt like it had ants crawling all over it. I didn’t think no more about it until a few weeks later—Adam noticed my hair was growing out white as cotton at the roots.

  Everything was different after that. Adam couldn’t be gone off fishing if we was to keep the store and post office open. I wasn’t any help; my spirit just left me. I couldn’t rouse up even to help with the young’uns.

  Mame noticed Mary Ann was looking at her like she was expecting something. Was she talking? Was Mary Ann? The old woman brought all her mind to bear and finally caught it—Mary Ann’s question about York’s temper.

  “I swore I’d never treat my kids like Father and Mother Bertram treated Martin and me,” she said, snatching up the thread of conversation before it unraveled even more. “But I guess Martin might of forgot because I heard he was mighty hard on York growing up. I was so glad to have family again when you and York moved here, but sometimes it does seem like he is Father Bertram come back in the flesh.”

  “So, what’s that got to do with me?” Mary Ann fumed. “I married York; I didn’t take him to raise.”

  “I guess what it means is, it’s probably for the best that you and York don’t have no young’uns. Just stop that mean streak of Bertrams right here and now.”

  Mame’s voice dipped again as her train of thought wobbled back on itself. She couldn’t tell whether Mary Ann heard her over Fredette’s hooves on the floorboards, but then the young woman slapped the reins and yelled, “Well, I can tell you right now, I ain’t got no babies on my mind. I’m just thinking on some way to get him back. I can give as well as I get!”

  Fredette spread her legs and braced. Devil eyes flashing, bleats trailing behind, they were gone around the bend.

  Mame was left standing, bonnet in hand, still thinking about Martin living up there in Plaquemine all those years. Could’ve seen his son, York, every day but didn’t. She never treated Josie and Lauf like that, but she lost them just the same. Just the same. There was naught to do but get back to digging.

  11

  On a July afternoon two weeks after Mary Ann’s angry visit, Roseanne was carrying buckets of water from the cistern to the kitchen. Early afternoons were generally quiet, so she had asked Loyce to mind the store. Now that the business and household were set up to run smoothly, Loyce could be there for customers while Roseanne enjoyed a few hours off.

  Roseanne’s help, in turn, gave Adam a chance to return to fishing after more than a decade of being land bound. How he had missed prowling those quiet bayous! In their shadowy depths he found more than catfish, blue crabs, and river shrimp. He rediscovered a vitality he had thought was gone forever. These days his step was quick and light on the boardwalk to the dock. His arms muscled up from rowing boats and pulling nets. Shirt buttons strained across his chest, until he had to leave the top ones unbuttoned. The sun bronzed his face, making his gray hair and eyes shimmer in contrast.

  He rowed home smelling of green cypress, bringing a merriment Loyce barely remembered and Roseanne had never seen. Just last evening he had been whistling softly while cleaning fish on the dock. Roseanne walked out to bring him the dishpan.

  “Ah, Mrs. Barclay, you always anticipate my needs,” he said, with a mock flourish of the fish skinners. “Have I told you how much you relieve me of burdens I didn’t even know I carried? I’m a century younger than before you stepped out of the woods. Was that just two months ago?” His gray eyes twinkled to match the playfulness in his voice.

  “You probably didn’t think events were headed in that direction when you saw me dragging those valises!” she said, catching his humor. “If you had laughed at me that day, I would have died of humiliation! How did you refrain?”

  “You clearly were a damsel in distress, Mrs. Barclay,” he continued in a theatrical voice, opening the screen door to the kitchen with another gallant flourish. “Seeing as how I learned to read on the great chivalric novels, I couldn’t shame my heroes by making light of your situation. And now you have repaid me many times over.”

  Together they looked around the neat kitchen, so different from the chaos she had stumbled upon back in the spring. Gone was the jumble of goods, clothes, and papers strewn across both floors of the old house. No more iron pots of scorched food soaking at the water cistern until the insides turned to rust. They both took in the serenity of the well-ordered household. Likewise, they both avoided the question of how and when it might end.

  Now as she easily carried two full buckets of water across the yard and up the steps, Roseanne realized she had changed as much as the household, maybe more. Before coming to the Chene, Roseanne had never lifted more than a croquet mallet and then only when she couldn’t get out of a Sunday afternoon match. She was grateful that her family and friends couldn’t see how she spent her time now. They’d probably try to rescue her!

  Truth be told, she didn’t mind the work. It was satisfying to help customers shop for the things that made their lives more comfortable. She particularly enjoyed researching various catalogs for specialty items. And there was real satisfaction in balancing the sales against the cash on hand at the end of the day.

  With the increased mental stimulation and physical exercise, Roseanne felt more alive than any other time in her life. At times she found herself in spirited arguments with Adam over books that she had yawned through in school. She also felt free to express her own opinions with Adam, Loyce, and the customers in a way she never could back home. But she had to be careful about that, she reminded herself. Talking too much about her past could lead to trouble. The most important thing was to make sure no one from her old life found out where she was and what she had gotten herself into. Toting her own bathwater was nothing compared to that!

  Roseanne filled two kettles from one of the buckets and set them on the stove, before adding a stick of dry ash wood to the firebox. She poured the remainder of the water into the dishpan. Watching the pan fill brought to mind the first time she had done that—the morning she cleaned the kitchen and nearly fainted from the exertion because of her corset. Surely that was a lifetime ago! In her looser corset and soft shoes, she could breathe and move with near-scandalous alacrity.

  Now, as the water heated, she removed the pins and shook down her hair. Bending from the waist, she vigorously brushed it out, reveling in the freedom of its movement. She removed her dress and corset, folding them neatly over the back of a chair. Then standing in only her chemise, she poured the hot water into the dishpan and swirled it with her hand before bending again. Her hair floated like a dark cloud on top of the water. She relaxed with her scalp below the surface for a minute, enjoying the sensation of warmth. Then she lifted her head and poured liquid castile soap into her palm. Starting from the scalp, she massaged the suds through her wet hair, working toward the dripping ends.

  She dipped her entire head beneath the surface again, swirling the hair around and then squeezing the soapy water back into the pan. As she lifted her torso to pour the used water into the pail, warm streams coursed down the side of her face and neck under the thin cotton chemise. By the time she bent again into a fresh pan of water, the wet cotton plastered the curve of her bosom.

  Had her head not been u
nder water, she may have heard Adam’s step at the screen door. His breath caught at the sight of her breasts swinging in the sodden cloth, the ridge of her spine, still straight, even as she bent from the waist. Her hands scooped water that ran across her white neck.

  Adam caught the door for support. When his strength returned, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to walk in and rinse the spot of suds she kept missing. Instead, he forced his arm to close the door, and he walked around the back of the house to the store entrance. Where was that damn fool husband of hers?

  Out front Drifter lay panting under the roof overhang, where the sun had moved from the east side of the porch to the west.

  “C’mon, Drifter,” Loyce said. “The clothesline is in the shade by now.”

  The little black dog stretched and yawned as Loyce felt her way down the steps to the plank walk connecting the porch to the back lot. Before Loyce had made it to the walk, Drifter was already sniffing ahead of her on the path. When the walk forked—right to the cistern, left to the outhouse—Loyce bore to the right and counted six steps before leaving the security of the planks. Angling her body even more to the right, she felt ahead with each foot before committing her weight behind the move. Coals from the washday fire gave her plenty of warning with their heat, but experience had taught her that tubs, buckets, logs, or a sleeping cat could be anywhere in the lot. Steps were not precise on the open ground, so she didn’t bother to count but relied instead on waving her outstretched arms slowly up and down, until her fingers brushed the first stiff, sun-dried garment. She continued following the clothesline and feeling the ground with her foot until she located the wicker basket.

  Laundry was a communal task. Soon after daylight Adam built the fire under the cast iron washpot he had filled with rainwater from the cistern. As it heated, he carried more water for the two galvanized rinse tubs. Roseanne did the actual washing, while Adam waited on customers. She grated Octagon soap into the tub of hot water and agitated the suds with a paddle. Stains were rubbed on the washboard with an extra dab of soap. Each piece was dropped into a tub of cold water and rinsed once, then again in a second tub. During lulls between customers, Adam helped with the wringing, wrapping long pieces around a young sapling to squeeze them nearly dry. Sometimes Mame would wander up to help with the washing or pinning the individual pieces to the cotton lines stretched between cottonwood trees. This time of year the sun dried their combined labor in a few hours.

  Now feeling her way along the lines, Loyce removed clothespins from the garments, placing the pins back on the line before dropping each piece into the wicker basket on the ground. She pushed the basket along with her foot, often bumping into Drifter, who snuffled around the yard under the lines. When she felt no more weight on the lines, she lifted the basket to her hip and turned left, feeling her way back to the plank walk, finally making her way to the porch. Well, that was her big excursion for the day, maybe even for the entire week!

  Placing the basket on the bed Fate had slept in as a little boy, she removed each piece of laundry, making stacks for each person. She folded her own stack as well as the items for the linen closet. She had noticed that linens were refolded and stacked precisely on the shelves since Roseanne’s arrival, but she didn’t take it as a rebuke on her own casual folding. Before Roseanne came, Adam and Mame didn’t think to do laundry until everyone was wearing dirty clothes. When they did get around to it, one tub full of washing could take all day to complete, what with Mame wandering off and Adam tending to customers. Yessir, Roseanne’s past was a mystery, but Loyce hoped she’d come to stay.

  Loyce settled into the porch rocker and tested the rolled-up newspaper in the palm of her left hand. She was waiting for the lone bee droning around the porch rafters. Otherwise, the afternoon was so quiet she could hear the chk, chk, chk of Mame’s butcher knife coming from behind the house, where she was weeding a patch of lilies.

  Suddenly she felt that prickle behind her neck, the one she had come to think of as The Watcher. While she couldn’t comprehend visual observation, she understood that someone was deliberately withholding all cues from her. She felt vulnerable and exposed for the third time in as many weeks. It always happened when there was no one around except Drifter. She held her breath and concentrated on listening.

  Then she heard the swish of a paddle. It was followed, seconds later, by Fate’s voice coming from the dock.

  “Hey Loyce, is the coffee water on?”

  Relief flooded the tension out of her muscles, and she let out the breath she had been holding. It must have been her imagination after all. Maybe that’s all it ever was.

  “Well, it’s three o’clock, so where’d you expect it to be?” she replied, slapping the rocking chair arm with the newspaper for emphasis. “Roseanne should be down to drip it in a bit. I think she’s pinning up her hair now that it’s dry. The Golden Era’s docked, so Val should be along too.”

  The boat clunked against the dock, and she heard Fate’s step, hollow sounding as he walked from stern to bow and then more solid as he strode the plank walk toward the porch. She couldn’t stop herself from counting the twenty steps. When Fate bounded onto the porch, she stood up from the chair but kept her grip on the rolled newspaper. He swept an arm around her waist and untied her apron, hugging her to him when she tried to retie it.

  “Get on now,” she said. “I’ve been laying wait for that whining old bee since morning, so don’t go scaring him off.”

  “What makes you think it’s a he and not a she?” Fate queried. He held her close until she returned the hug. His familiar body was a comfort after her scare, and she stayed in his embrace longer than usual.

  “’Cause he just makes noise and never produces anything useful,” she laughed.

  “Hey, there’s no cause to say that. I’m on to something useful right now! Been up to Atchafalaya Station, where Wambly showed off about smoking fish—not the way the Indians do it but the way scientists do it.”

  “You mean like bacon?”

  “That’s right, Loyce. It’s another one of those things he learned up at that World’s Fair in St. Louis. Take most any of your big fish and cut it into strips. Soak it in a brine, then lay it on these racks over a smoky fire. No different really from making bacon. Be able to keep it for the longest time, so you don’t have to sell it right away. Get more for it than for fresh too! I’m gonna make me some money—I can feel it.”

  “Ugh, fish bacon sounds like the nastiest taste I can imagine. Who’s gonna buy it?”

  “Wambly says the government will buy it to feed prisoners. Plus, other people might develop a taste for it if we can talk them into trying it somehow.”

  “Not around here, they won’t. Why would they eat something that nasty when there’s fresh fish any day you want it? Might be a caution against going to prison, though.”

  “Well, another thing we could do is ship it to places where they don’t have fresh fish. Once they get that railroad finished up at Atchafalaya Station, won’t take no time at all to send it north. Plus, it’ll keep.”

  Loyce jabbed the front of Fate’s shirt with her index finger, a gesture he knew well.

  “If you keep listening to Wambly Cracker, you’ll never—”

  Ka wooom! A blast shook the trees in the woodlot between the store and York’s property. Loyce’s finger stopped in midair, and she cocked an ear toward the sound. Drifter leaped protectively in front of her.

  “That can’t be nothing but York’s still!” Fate shouted as he jumped off the porch onto the ground.

  12

  Loyce plopped down but didn’t rock. She needed to concentrate on listening. It was easy enough to follow Fate’s footsteps down the woods path a piece, but then they jumbled up with other boots pounding from every which way. Seemed that everyone in hearing distance was running toward York’s, but Loyce would have to wait until someone thought to tell her what had happened, even if somebody was hurt or dead. She slapped her thigh until it stung and
started up the rocking chair again. Rocking always helped unknot her frazzles.

  Shouts rang out from every direction until she was dizzy with sound. Then the noise settled down in one place. After that the voices mixed up with scraping and thudding. Wood? Metal? She was trying to puzzle it out when the shouts got louder. Headed toward the post office!

  “Loyce, clear off the downstairs bed and get some water!” Adam’s voice rose above the other noises.

  She didn’t waste time asking why but flew down the breezeway to the room Fate had used before he moved into the houseboat with Mame. As she felt across the top of the mattress, she heard Roseanne’s shoes running down the stairs. Only a bundle of newspapers and a few of Adam’s books cluttered the top of the neatly made bed. She kicked them under the bed and felt across the top of the quilt again. As a final step, she fluffed the pillow and caught Fate’s scent, even though he had moved to the houseboat years back.

  Boots clomped up the back steps as she finished dipping water from a bucket into a basin. Adam, Fate, Val, and Alcide were all talking at once. Loyce grabbed a towel and caught up with the commotion just as they were stepping through the bedroom door. She squeezed inside, on the edge of the noise, waiting for someone to notice the basin and rag. Adam grabbed them.

  “It’s York!” Roseanne explained to Loyce before switching to questions of her own. “How bad? What happened? What do you need?” Roseanne continued, throwing the questions at anyone who might know.

  “A doctor would come in handy,” Adam answered. “But since we don’t have one, Mrs. Barclay, bring me a tin of that yellow ointment from the store.”

  Roseanne didn’t take time to answer but ran across the breezeway.

  “I’ll fetch Mary Ann!” That was Alcide’s voice already coming back through the door. “But some honey and Mame’s comfrey leaves would be better. That store-bought medicine ain’t as good when it comes to a bad burn.”